Mariamawit Tadesse, Author at

The CFA Franc Zones: Neocolonialism and Dependency

French geopolitics in Africa is interested in natural resources. Initially, the franc zone was set as a colonial monetary system by issuing currency in the colonies because France wanted to avoid transporting cash. After these countries gained their independence, the monetary system continued its operation and went on to include two other countries that were not former French colonies. At present, the CFA franc zones are made up of 14 countries. The fact that even today the currency of these regions is pegged to the euro (formerly French franc) and that reserves are deposited in France shows the subtle neocolonialism France has been pursuing unchecked. It is a currency union where France is the center and has veto power. This is supported by African governing elites who rely on the economic, political, technical, and sometimes military support provided by France. It is no wonder then that these former colonies are not growing to their full potential because they have exchanged development through sovereignty for dependency on France. This article investigates the set up of the CFA franc zones, its ties to French neocolonialism and its ability to further breed dependency in the former colonies of West and Central Africa.

The CFA Franc Zones

The first franc zone was set up in 1939 as a monetary region with a the French franc as its main currency. In 1945, the Franc des Colonies Francaises d’Afrique (CFA franc) and the Franc des Colonies Francaises du Pacifique (CFP franc) were created. After independence, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Guinea left. The Central African Economic and Monetary Union (CEMAC) and the West African Economic and Monetary Community (WAEMU) are known as the two CFA franc zones. WAEMU has eight members: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote D’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau (a former Portuguese colony joined in 1997), Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo. Their common currency is the “franc de la Communaute Financiere de l”Afrique (CFA franc), which is issued by the Central Bank of the West African States (BCEAO) located in Dakar, Senegal. CEMAC has six members: Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea (a former Spanish colony joined in 1985) and Gabon. Their common currency is “franc de la Cooperation Financiere Africaine”, which is issued by the Bank of the Central African States (BEAC) located in Yaounde, Cameroon. It is worth mentioning that the BCEAO and the BEAC were headquartered in Paris until the late 1970s.

Since 1948, the two CFA francs were pegged at the rate of 50 CFA francs per French franc. In 1994, the CFA francs went through devaluation, 50 percent to be exact. At present, the arrangement of France to the two unions are a fixed peg to the euro, a convertibility guarantee by the French Treasury and lastly, a set of legal, institutional and policy requirements. The CFA franc zone links three currencies: the two unions and the euro. The CFA franc is fixed at 655.957 per euro. WAEMU and CEMAC each have their own central banks that are independent of each other. The CFA francs can be converted to the euro, but cannot directly be converted into each other. The money is sent to France as an operations account in the French Treasury by the two central banks. Furthermore, “at least 20 percent of sight liabilities of each central bank must be covered by foreign exchange reserves, at least 50 percent of foreign exchange reserves must be held in the operations account and increasing interest rate penalties apply if there is an overdraft. France is also represented on the board of both institutions.” In “Colonial Hangover: the Case of the CFA”, Pierre Canac and Rogelio Garcia-Contreras explain,

“The functioning of the Operations Accounts is critical to maintaining the convertibility of the CFA francs at the official exchange rate while, at the same time, allowing the regional central banks to maintain some monetary autonomy. The Operations Accounts are credited with the foreign reserves of the BCEAO and the BEAC, but can be negative when the balance of payments of the CFA zone members is unfavorable. When this is the case, the French treasury lends foreign reserves to the two central banks. This special relationship with the French treasury allows the two African central banks to maintain the fixity of the exchange rate while allowing them to have some limited control over their monetary policy. The amount of borrowing allowed is unlimited although subject to several constraints in order to limit the size of the debt. First, the central banks receive interest on their credit in the Operations Account, while they must pay a progressively increasing interest rate on their debit in the account. Second, foreign reserves other than French francs or euros may have to be surrendered – a practice called ‘ratissage’, or additional reserves may have to be borrowed from the IMF. Third, the French treasury appoints members to the boards of the BCEAO and BEAC in order to influence their respective monetary policies and to ensure their consistency with the fixed parity. The autonomy of both African central banks is curbed by the French authorities, thereby prolonging the colonial relationship between France and its former colonies.”

Apparently, representatives from France fill important positions in the Presidency, Ministry of Defense, Central Bank, Treasury, Accounting and Budget Departments, and Ministry of Finance, which allows them to have oversight and influence policy decisions. One French scholar observed that ministries from Francophone African states make around 2000 visits to Paris in an average year. Adom shows the money kept at the French treasury earns no or very low interest for the franc zone nations. In 2007, the former Senegalese President, Abdoulaye Wade had stated that the funds can be used to boost investment, economic growth and alleviate poverty in the member countries instead of sitting in France.

After the 1994 devaluation, the two CFA francs were pegged at the new rate of 100 CFA francs per French franc. The reason for the devaluation was accounted to loss of competitiveness as the French franc appreciated against the currency of major trading partners. These zones competitiveness was in the French market, but not to world markets. In the 1980s, there was a fall in the price of raw materials and a depreciation of the dollar. As a result, the growth and export of these nations were impacted. The governments of these zones were facing budget deficits, which they financed by borrowing from abroad until the IMF refused to lend them any more money in 1993. As for trade between the unions, it is low due to an external tariff. Capital flows between these unions is highly restricted. The hope that a monetary union would increase trade among the CFA franc zones never materialized.

Neocolonialism and France

Kwame Nkrumah stated, “…imperialism… claims, that it is “giving” independence to its former subjects, to be followed by “aid” for their development. Under cover of such phrases, however, it devises innumerable ways to accomplish objectives formerly achieved by naked colonialism. It is this sum total of these modern attempts to perpetuate colonialism while at the same time talking about “freedom”, which has come to be known as neo-colonialism.”

In “Government accounting reform in an ex-French African colony: The political economy of neocolonialism”, P.J.C. Lassou and T. Hopper state, “colonialism does not cease with the declaration of political independence or the lowering of the last European flag. Decolonization is a formal facade if former colonies cannot acquire the socio-economic base and political institutions to manage themselves as sovereign independent countries. The modern manifestation of colonial and imperialist traits is commonly labeled neocolonialism, which is sometimes linked to ‘dependency’. Neocolonialism occurs when the former colonial power still controls the political and economic institutions of former colonies.”

France is carrying out neocolonialism by disguising this arrangement as a monetary union. These nations gave up their sovereign right to France. Neocolonialism is an impediment to development within African nations. France’s intervention was carried out through economic, political and militaristic ways. The ‘Accords de Cooperation’ was signed by African leaders who gained power with France’s help at independence. On the other hand, the ‘Accords speciaux de defence’ provided France power to intervene militarily to protect African leaders who protected France’s interests. Lastly, the economic accords require former colonies to export their raw materials such as oil, uranium, phosphate, cocoa, coffee, rubber, cotton … etc to France while importing industrial goods and services primary from France. Furthermore, these nations reduce or ban their raw material exports when French defense interest require.

Lassou and Hopper stress that accounting is a neglected part of development policies, especially in Francophone Africa. They share that “market-based reforms when applied in the South generally and Africa specifically…promote neocolonialism, enabling former colonial powers to retain control over political and economic institutions of former colonies to the advantage of multi-national corporations and trade whereby ‘Southern’ countries export cheap raw materials to ‘Northern’ countries and import high value-added goods and services in return.”

According to the Human Development Index, out of 187 countries, the last three and seven of the worst ten countries are from Francophone Africa. France’s neocolonialism approach is extremely subtle and paternalistic. The former French President, Jacques Chirac, said, “ We forget one thing: that is, a large part of the money that is in our [I.e., the French’s] wallet comes precisely from the exploitation of Africa [mostly Francophone Africa] over centuries.” In 2008, he went on to say, “without Africa France would slide down into the rank of a [third] world power.”

Dependency Theory and Francophone Africa

Africa, Asia, and Latin America have pursued sustainable development since gaining independence. However, a few countries succeeded in actually developing their economies. In the 1950s, Raul Prebisch and other economist came up with the dependency theory, which explains why “economic growth in the advanced industrialized countries did not necessarily lead to growth in poorer countries.” Prebisch suggested that poor countries (periphery nations) exported raw materials to the developed countries (center nations) and imported finished goods. Moreover, there is a dynamic relationship between dominant and dependent states. Andre Gunder Frank claimed that the capitalist world system was divided into two concentric spheres: center and periphery. The advanced center countries need cheap raw materials from the underdeveloped periphery as well as a market to send their finished products.

It has been decades since African countries gained independence. However, this independence was replaced by a dominance-dependence relationship known as post-colonialism. A dominance-dependence occurs “when one country is able to participate in a definitive or determining way in the decision-making process of another country while the second country is unable to have the same participation in the decision-making of the first country.” Furthermore, the foreign and domestic policies of the independent African nations continue to be influenced by outside powers, especially their former colonizers. The post-colonial relationship when it came to former French colonies is the dominant role held by France.

French colonialism was one of state colonialism. It was one of direct rule where native chiefs assisted French administrators, which led to the rise of local elites who were educated in the French system. The former colonies were indoctrinated with French culture, language, and law. In the time of independence, sub-Saharan colonies decolonized in a non-violent way while former British colonies gained their independence through war, a violent way that loosened the relationship towards Great Britain. Because freedom from France was carried out through non-violence, it came naturally for local elites to take power and continue their strong ties with France.

Through the CFA franc zone, France is able to control the money supply, monetary and financial regulations, banking activities, credit allocation, and budgetary and economic policies of these nations. In addition, it breeds corruption and illegal diversion of public aid between France and its former colonies. For instance, conditional French public aid has forced these African states to spend the ‘aid’ money on French equipment, goods or contracts with French firms, especially construction and public work firms.

S.K.B. Asante points out that regional integration approaches do not remove the neocolonialism and dependency the African continent faces. He states, “none of the regional schemes have adequate provisions for attacking the all-embracing issue of dependency reduction nor have the efforts made towards this objective had any significant impact…the problem of dependency poses difficulties for African countries attempting a strategy of regional integration. Dependency serves as an obstacle to de-development it not only limits the beneficial effects of integration in both national and regional economy.”

Economic Performance of the CFA Franc Zones

France is the main trading partner of the CFA franc zones. CFA franc zones, unlike other African nations, have avoided high inflations due to France. The two zones between 1989 and 1999 had 33 percent of imports and 40 percent of Foreign Direct Investment from France. These regions are highly dependent on France. Despite their ties to France, these CFA franc zones remain extremely poor. The two regions had a population of 132 million in 2008 where 70 percent are in WAEMU and 30 percent are in CAEMC. Their total GDP is equal to 4 percent of the French GDP. These regions are “producers and exporters of raw materials, including oil, minerals, wood and agricultural commodities, and agricultural commodities, they are highly sensitive to world price fluctuations and the trade policies of their trading partners, mainly the EU and the US. Their industrial sectors are rather underdeveloped.” Non-oil producing nations within the CFA franc zones have very low GDP per capita.

According to Assande Des’ Adom, even after the currency was devalued, the CFA franc zones still suffer from currency misalignments. Adom points out, “the current monetary arrangements between the former colonies and France were designed based essentially on the economic interest of the latter. A prominent Ivorian economist goes even further to explain how franc zone’s member countries indirectly finance the French economy through these peculiar monetary arrangements.”

The CFA franc zone is challenged by globalization, volatile oil and raw material prices in addition to regional security problems. It can be argued that the “dependency and neocolonial practices surrounding the relationship between France and former colonial possessions in Africa is the inability of CFA countries to build up monetary reserves.” In today’s world, control of a country is carried out through economic and monetary ways. Nkrumah had warned

“The neocolonial state may be obliged to take the manufactured products of the imperialist power to the exclusion of competing products elsewhere. Control over government policy in the neo-colonial state may be secured by payment towards the cost of running the State, by the provision of civil servants in positions where they can dictate policy, and by monetary control over foreign exchange through the imposition of a banking system controlled by the imperial power.”

In conclusion, the CFA franc zones continue to be dominated by the political will, economic interest, and geopolitical strategy pursued by the French republic. It seems some elite leaders do not wean away from France’s influence. President Omar Bongo of Gabor said, “France without Gabon is like a car without petrol, Gabon without France is analogous to a car without a driver.” The previous quote can be applied to almost all of the franc zone nations. The set up of the currency unions benefits France more than its members. French colonialism is preventing the development of these nations and causing them to be dependent.

Hidden in Plain Sight: Illicit Financial Flows

The importance of Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) in the context of economic development has slowly come to grasp people’s attention. The World Bank defines IFFs as “money illegally earned, transferred, or used that crosses borders.” Since 2006, the Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington, DC-based think tank, has done extensive research on IFFs. Their studies emphasize that the developing world lost $7.8 trillion in IFFs between 2004-2013—whereby $1.1 trillion was lost in 2013 alone. Studies have shown there is a strong correlation between IFFs and higher levels of poverty and economic inequality. The United Nations just passed its first resolution on combatting IFFs, as it is pertinent to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. This article explores further how IFFs occur, their role in keeping economies from developing—especially in the African continent, and some suggestions to tackle them.

Illicit financial flows are often mistaken as capital flight. This assumption is false because capital flight could be entirely licit. We can group the IFFs in three categories: commercial activities, which account for 65% of IFFs; criminal activities, estimated to be about 30%; and corruption, amounting to around 5%. Trade mis-invoicing is the most common way illicit funds leave developing nations, averaging 83.4%. Trade mis-invoicing means moving money illicitly across borders by misreporting the value of a commercial transaction on an invoice that is submitted to customs. It is carried out by under-invoicing exports and over-invoicing imports. Under-invoicing the value of exports means writing the price of a good as being less than the price actually paid, in order to show reduced profits and then pay less in taxes. Once the good is exported, it will be sold at full price and the excess money will be put in an offshore account. Over-invoicing the value of imports is when the price of a good is listed as being higher than the seller actually intends to charge the client. The excess money is deposited in the importer’s offshore bank account. There is the misconception that IFFs are largely due to corruption when in fact they account only for 5%, as mentioned above. With invoice manipulation of prices, there is no need for bribing anymore.

Another scheme used in IFFs is misreporting the quality or quantity of the traded products and services. According to a report by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa and the African Union Commission, in 2012, Mozambican records showed a total export of 260,385 cubic meters of timber, while Chinese records alone show an import of 450,000 cubic meters of the same timber from Mozambique. Other strategies consist of creating fictitious transactions (which consists of making payments on goods or services that never materialize), transfer mispricing (which involves the manipulation of prices), and profit shifting (which is popular among corporations looking for favorable tax rates).

Role of IFFs in Keeping Economies from Developing

Illicit Financial Flows act as a barrier to economies from developing and achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Illicit financial outflows—facilitated by secrecy in the global financial system—are bleeding developing countries dry. UNCTAD emphasizes that developing countries will need $2.5 trillion every year until 2030 to achieve their goals on health, nutrition, education and the rest. But pledged capital inflows are only around $1.2 trillion. Preventing or even reducing IFFs can fill this funding gap. Seven out of the past 10 years, IFFs were greater than Official Development Assistance (ODA) and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) given to poor nations.

The IMF estimates that developing nations lose $200 billion from tax revenues per year due to IFFs, while OECD countries lose $500 billion. Specifically, the United States (US) loses $100 billion annually. Tackling IFFs is in the interest of the US. Even though both developed and developing countries are victims of IFFs, developing countries suffer greater losses.

When it comes to most significant volume of IFFs, Asia is leading by 38.8% of the developing world over the ten years of this study. However, when IFFs are scaled as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), Sub-Saharan Africa tops the list averaging 6.1% of the region’s GDP.

At the Seventh Joint Annual Meetings of the ECA Conference of African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Development and African Union Conference of Ministers of Economy and Finance in March 2014 in Abuja, Nigeria, a Ministerial Statement was issued, which states that:

“Africa loses $50 billion a year in illicit financial flows. These flows relate principally to commercial transactions, tax evasion, criminal activities (money laundering, and drug, arms and human trafficking), bribery, corruption and abuse of office. Countries that are rich in natural resources and countries with inadequate or non-existent institutional architecture are the most at risk of falling victim to illicit financial flows. These illicit flows have a negative impact on Africa’s development efforts: the most serious consequences are the loss of investment capital and revenue that could have been used to finance development programmes, the undermining of State institutions and a weakening of the rule of law.”

Former South African president Thabo Mbeki stated at a High-Level Panel on IFFs “Africa is a net creditor to the rest of the world.” The amount of IFFs out of Africa were between $854 billion and $1.8 trillion over the period 1970-2008, according to estimates by GFI. There is a campaign to end IFFs, “Stop the Bleeding”, led by Trust Africa Foundation. Mr. Mbeki stressed that Africa can no longer afford to have its resources depleted through IFFs. On the other hand, illicit financial transfers by African elites paint a different picture. It shows that African elites lack confidence in their own economies. Because they have the privilege to go abroad for education and healthcare, they are less likely to invest in their own countries.

Curbing IFFs

When searching the literature on IFFs, the focus seems to be on developing nations, which are the source. However, there is little focus on the destination countries like Switzerland, Ireland, United Kingdom, etc. A paper by GFI titled “The Absorption of Illicit Financial Flows from Developing Countries: 2000-2006”, discusses that there are two types of destinations for money leaving the developing world. These are offshore financial centers and non-offshore developed country banks. The greatest challenge is getting the money back from the destination countries.

The OECD and the Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR) surveyed frozen assets held by OECD countries and how much of them were returned to the countries of origin . Between 2010 and June 2012, $1.4 billion of corruption-related assets were frozen and only $147 million was returned.

During the Arab Spring, banks and governments froze billions of dollars held by previous leaders along with their associates from Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. However, following the Arab Spring, only few assets have been returned and the process of recovering stolen assets is very cumbersome. In order to recover stolen assets, there needs to be solid enough proof that these assets were in fact gained through corruption to begin with.

Illicit financial flows is an issue that plagues the developing world. Nations are denied tax revenues that could be geared towards providing necessities, employment, and economic growth. Nations should hold their financial institutions accountable if they participate in tax evasion activities. There is a need for the creation of financial supervision agencies focused on IFFs. Another suggestion would be the development of a global trade-pricing database so that customs officials are not tricked by false prices. Lastly, the Bank of International Settlement should publish data on international banking assets by country of origin and country of destination in order to better comprehend where IFFs are headed.

Written by Mariamawit F. Tadesse

Carbon Trading, Sustainable Development and Financial Fragility

The response to climate change is one of the most pressing policy issues of our time. Carbon trading assets are currently worth more than $100 billion. This market is expected to reach $3 trillion by 2020. In Stabilizing an Unstable Economy Hyman Minsky notes that the markets for financial assets are inherently unstable, leading to the cyclical behavior of the economic system. How effective then are market-based solutions to solving climate change? It might just be that carbon markets have not reduced environmental instability and may increase financial instability of the entire economic system.

The core of carbon trading isnot trading of physical GHGs, but the trading of the right to emit GHGs and the unit of account is a ton of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO₂e). The carbon market stems from the Kyoto Protocol, and its specifics are target of discussion as scholars debate about the legal characteristics of the carbon unit. Some countries view it as a commodity while others see it as a monetary currency.

Under the Kyoto Protocol trading mechanisms were made up of three types: international emissions trading, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), and Joint Implementation (JI). The European Union Emission Trading System (EU ETS) is the world’s largest carbon market. According to the 2016 ICAP worldwide emissions report, there are 17 emissions trading systems operating around the world, which are currently pricing more than four billion tons of GHG emissions. In 2017, two new systems will be launched: China and Ontario, the former will become the largest of such systems, and will drive worldwide coverage of ETSs to reach seven billion tons of emissions by 2017.

Voluntary markets exchanges (carbon markets outside the Kyoto) are also on the rise because they make trading, hedging and risk management easier by providing liquidity. Furthermore, they develop sophisticated financial instruments such as CER futures, options, and swaps, which will help establish a price forecast for carbon. Some of these markets are the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX), Multi-Commodity Exchange of India (MCX), and Asian Carbon Trade Exchange.

Sustainable Development

From their foundation, carbon markets have failed to address the underlying root causes of climate change. They divert money from technological investment that will actually reduce the use of fossil fuels towards the financial markets. Furthermore, they are causing instability in the environment through the use of carbon offsets, which have caused massive green grabs to occur in the global South, and through outsourcing emissions to developing nations. Carbon offsets were created by Kyoto to describe emissions reductions projects that are not covered by an ETS. For instance, tree plantations, fuel switches, wind farms, hydroelectric dams…etc.

The world’s richest have over-consumed the planet to the brink of ecological disaster. Instead of reducing emissions within their own countries, they have created a carbon dump in poorer regions. As such, emissions trading system represent the world’s greatest privatization of a natural asset. The Kyoto protocol is set up in a way that carbon sink projects (forests, oceans, etc.) are only accepted when people with official status manage them. Hence, it expands the potential for neocolonial land-grabbing to occur. Rainforest inhabited by indigenous people will only qualify as “managed” under the Kyoto when they are run by the state or a registered private company.

Furthermore, carbon trading has also failed to reduce global GHGs emissions. When a country claims to have reduced its carbon emissions, one must question whether it is by adopting low-carbon technologies, like how Sweden used well-crafted public policies and market incentives to decarbonization, or by outsourcing its emissions to another country, most likely to developing nations. For example, the Chinese government has questioned whether the emissions coming out of Chinese smokestacks were really ‘Chinese’ or should they be accounted to those in Western countries who are consuming Chinese goods or are owned by joint venues with developed countries. The question arose because Europe claimed that it was making progress on climate change based on tabulating the physical locations of molecules. Larry Lohmann phrased it perfectly when he said that Europe’s statistical claim “[conceal[s] an important fact that it has offshored much of its emissions [to China].” Take the UK, it has not in fact reduced its emissions it merely offshored one-third of its emissions by not accounting for emissions of imported goods and international travel.

Carbon markets have had many fraudulent activities within them. In 2002, the UK had a trial emissions trading scheme worth £215 million, which resulted in fraud. Three chemical corporations had been given £93 million in incentives when they had already met their reduction target. Another famous fraudulent activity revolved around international offset projects whereby companies would create GHGs just to destroy them and make money off of the credits.

As nature is being commodified and privatized,the current policies for sustainable development, under the guise of conservation, are alienating the poor from their means of livelihood by securing resources for organizations. These indigenous people — land users — are seen as needing to be saved from their primitive ways and to be educated on utilizing sustainable development within the bounds of the market. If it sounds like colonialism that is because it is.

For example, there exists specific types of green grabs known as conservation enclosures where the market is seen as the best way to conserve biodiversity. Hence, authorities are privatizing, commercializing and commoditizing nature at an alarming rate through payment for ecosystem services to wildlife derivatives. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a multilateral treaty set up at the 1992 UN Earth Summit has a target the protection of 17 percent of terrestrial and inland water and 10 percent of coastal and marine areas. For instance, Conservation International (CI) pushed the government of Madagascar to protect 10 percent of its territory, while in Mozambique a British company negotiated a lease with the government for 19 percent of the country’s land. President Elizabeth Sirleaf Johnson of Liberia called for the extradition of a British businessman accused of bribery over a $2.2 billion carbon offsetting deal. The deal was to lease one-fifth of Liberia’s forests, which account for 32 percent of its land. In Uganda, a Norwegian company leased land for a carbon sink project, which evicted 8,000 people in 13 villages.

In Oxfam Australia’s 2016 report on land grabs, palm oil has become “responsible for large-scale deforestation, extensive carbon emissions and the critical endangerment of species… India, China and the European Union (EU) are the largest consumers of palm oil globally.” The European Union’s renewable energy policy being a significant driver of global palm oil demand due to its aim to source 10 percent of transport energy from renewable sources by 2020, which has increased its palm oil usage by 365 percent.

Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+) is an effort to create a financial value for the carbon that is stored in forests. It is used to justify green grabbing and is expected to be one of the biggest land grabs in history. By using REDD+ as a conservation mechanism and a financial stream, “the CDB is both legitimating the commodity of carbon itself and helping to create the market for its trade.” The CDB is forming new nature markets along with new nature derivatives whereby investors speculate on future values encompassed in, for instance, species extinction like that of tigers.

Financial Fragility

Hyman Minsky was fully aware that a capitalist system was a monetary system with financial institutions that were prone to instability. Minsky is famous for saying that the strength of capitalism is that it comes in at least 57 varieties. The last and current stage is Money Manager Capitalism, which was made up off highly levered profit- seeking organizations like that of money market mutual funds, mutual funds, sovereign wealth funds, and private pension funds. The financial instability hypothesis argues that the internal dynamics of capitalist economies over time give rise to financial structures, which are prone to debt deflations, the collapse of asset values, and deep depressions. Minsky has always warned, “Stability is Destabilizing.”

Money managers act as agents. They pursue short-term profits by trading instruments that are not easily verifiable, which makes fraud likely possible in carbon markets. The dramatic rise in securitization has opened up national boundaries leading to the internationalization of finance. Securitization within the carbon markets increases the risk of leading to boom-bust cycles. At present, speculators are the major players in carbon trading and their dominance in carbon markets is growing at an alarming rate. Financialization is an important precondition for the rise and operation of carbon offsets. The financial innovation in this scheme is that it uses nature itself as a financial instrument. Moreover, it is selling nature to save it and then saving nature to trade it.

‘Green bonds’ are carbon assets that are sold to the Northern hemisphere, backed by Southern land and Southern public funds. Lohmann shares that financial speculation of collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) are at least based on specifiable mortgages on actual houses while climate commodity or subprime carbon cannot be specified, quantified, or verified even in principle. Even conservatives and Republicans have said, “if you like credit default swaps, you’re going to love carbon derivatives.” It has become apparent that carbon markets are not only driven by trade, but also by speculation. Carbon derivatives are growing at a fast rate as speculators are moving from other assets towards carbon. Whereas once investors bet on the collapse of the US housing market, there are some traders who are betting on the collapse of the carbon credit market.

As more investors, specifically hedge funds, enter the carbon markets, they increase market volatility and create an asset bubble or ‘carbon bubble’. Money managers by acting as agents trade carbons and increase financial fragility. Their income is driven by assets under management and short-term rates of return. Hence if they miss the benchmark, they will lose their clients. So they act on short profit bases by taking risky positions, and carbon trading provides those risks. In brief, using Minsky’s theory, we can predict with confidence that the carbon market is inherently unstable and that in addition to its not achieving its goal of reducing emissions, it is also heading to a financial disaster.

Even though Minsky pushed for regulation when it came to financial markets, regulating carbon markets will not solve the problem. Tighter regulation of carbon markets, particularly secondary and derivative markets is just a Band-Aid solution and will fail to affect fundamental change. Financial markets have had to be bailed out again and again. However, as a British Climate Camp activist said “nature doesn’t do bailouts.” On a global scale, GHG emissions have gone up. There is an offshoring of emissions. The best policy would be eliminating offsets, specifically from the developing world. Furthermore, there needs to be policies that encourage low-carbon technology as used in Sweden. Another policy recommendations would be a harmonized carbon tax.

Written by Mariamawit F. Tadesse
Illustrations by Heske van Doornen